Follow F.A.I.R, They Know the Way

[bluebell]

8 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Authoritatively taught Over the Pulpit, YES, does the church hold a gun to your head and say you must believe, No...but that doesn't quite get to the problem.  As members we are taught to follow the prophet.  We sing "We thank thee Oh God for a prophet". Ezra Benson taught that the prophet will never lead the church astray, and yet several have taught provable falsehoods as doctrine...is that not leading members astray?

Above I have provided two examples of prophets teaching false doctrine over the pulpit in general conference.  I'm sure you reject both of these prophetic pronouncements or at least I hope you reject them. So you do not follow the prophets when they teach falsehoods but so many others hold to a deeper trust in these men and many still believe in their false teachings to their detriment. 

I get that that’s your opinion. And a strident one. But your interpretation of things is not fact. You keep repeating your conclusions as if they should have some affect on our beliefs.

I don’t know how to respond to your thought processes because they seem very unreasonable to me.

[let’s roll]

On 7/14/2022 at 7:19 PM, Fair Dinkum said:

Not back just a short visit. My reception reminds me again why I left before.  But you asked a fair question…I’m a non believer in all things Mormon.  I believe JS was a fraud and the BoM a work of fiction as was all so called scripture written by JS.  That said I love Mormons and I consider myself very much a Mormon.   But as I replied earlier.  I follow established verifiable truth.  This kind of Truth is generally supported with empirical evidence. 

I take you at your word that you love Mormons, and thank you for your love for this Mormon.  I trust your love for me includes happiness for the joy I have found as a result of my efforts to come to know both our Father and elder brother.  An important aspect of that joy is the dissipation of doubt and fear as I increase in knowledge of Deity.

If a life devoid of fear and doubt appeals to you, I invite you to commit yourself to better know God and His Son.  I trust your time in the tribe has led to an understanding of what Deity has said regarding how one comes to know them.

Godspeed to you.

[Fair Dinkum]

18 hours ago, Vanguard said:

Ok. So you are still a theist though skeptical of the LDS truth claims?

I'm a skeptic of unprovable claims

[Fair Dinkum]

16 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Looks like you’ve Googled the name to fact check yourself. Glad you’re clear on it now. 

Bro Lloyd with 2 L's not one, LOL...I'll give you this...along with being consistent, you are also persistent.

[JLHPROF]

41 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm a skeptic of unprovable claims

It's a question of what you will accept as evidence.

[Vanguard]

4 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm a skeptic of unprovable claims

That's all good. I would nimagine then you're agnostic about the broader claims of Christiantiy. So it isn't really primarily a beef with LDS Christiantiy per se. It's good to know the parameters of the debate as early as possible. I obviously can't speak for anyone else here but I find little merit debating/discussing our own particular faith claims when the real issue is much greater.

[Tacenda]

Is there a problem when even the LDS scholars or apologists believe there probably wasn't a Tower of Babel?

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm a skeptic of unprovable claims

So you do follow the apostles as you support the dubious idea (taught by an apostle once) that when asked a question you should ignore the question and instead answer the question you think they should have asked?

Interesting.

[Fair Dinkum]

On 7/15/2022 at 12:10 PM, pogi said:

I can see how that would be troubling if one based their testimony on the inerrancy of prophets.   On matters like this (where it doesn't matter to my faith or salvation if the story is literal or not) I give more wiggle room to the prophets.  I don't need to believe everything they say before I believe that they are prophets.  

It might be difficult for some to accept them as prophets when they make such obvious (to them) blunders and mistakes on matters of "fact", but for me, I oddly take comfort in it all.  It tells me a lot about God and his plan, and comforts me in knowing that I am not expected to know everything.  Neither are his prophets.  Nobody is expected to know anything with certainty - and I don't believe anyone possibly can.   I am only expected to feel after him, palpating along the elephant, and perpetuate what works and bears fruit.  This process is increasingly enlightening and forgiving of imperfection and mistakes in perception.    It helps me understand better the nature of God's plan and direction of his church and infinite patience towards us fallible humans.   We are not supposed to know everything.  What a relief!  We need to have more compassion on ourselves and others in our ignorance - even prophets.   

How can a witness maintain credibility if they consistently tell falsehoods, how can prophets maintain credibility if they consistently teach false doctrine.  Where exactly in their long line of false teachings does one finally accept that they’ve lost all credibility?  

[Scott Lloyd]

On 7/16/2022 at 9:00 AM, Fair Dinkum said:

Bro Lloyd with 2 L's not one, LOL...I'll give you this...along with being consistent, you are also persistent.

If it seems that way, it’s because I’m not clear what you’re getting at. I don’t dispute there are various ways to spell my surname. That’s true of most (almost all?) proper names. But weirdly, you seem to be deriding my spelling of it, which is probably the most common. 
 

I haven’t studied the Welsh language, but I’m told the double L, also present in names like Llewelyn, denotes a consonant sound inherent in that language but not in English. 
 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Fair Dinkum]

On 7/15/2022 at 7:28 PM, bluebell said:

I get that that’s your opinion. And a strident one. But your interpretation of things is not fact. You keep repeating your conclusions as if they should have some affect on our beliefs.

I don’t know how to respond to your thought processes because they seem very unreasonable to me.

Bluebell, you asked for examples, I provided them for you, you then changed your parameters so I provided you new examples to meet your new parameters and now my thought processes are unreasonable to you….ok if you say so.

[Fair Dinkum]

10 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If it seems that way, it’s because I’m not clear what you’re getting at. I don’t dispute there are various ways to spell my surname. That’s true of most (almost all?) proper names. But weirdly, you seem to be deriding my spelling of it, which is probably the most common. 
 

I haven’t studied the Welsh language, but I’m told the double L, also present in names like Llewelyn, denotes a consonant sound unique to that language. 
 

I recently visited the Welch village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.  Lots of double LL’s there also.  
 

I wasn’t deriding your last name, at least that wasn’t my intent.  I was, perhaps poorly, attempting to be just as pedantic as you…but then I learned that what you consistently do has a name. It’s called Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome so I will try to be more compassionate of your condition in the future.  You’re just being you. 

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I recently visited the Welch village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.  Lots of double LL’s there also.  
 

I wasn’t deriding your last name, at least that wasn’t my intent.  I was, perhaps poorly, attempting to be just as pedantic as you…but then I learned that what you consistently do has a name. It’s called Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome so I will try to be more compassionate of your condition in the future.  You’re just being you. 

GPS?

Maybe they're just trying to prevent us from getting lost in our language.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

How can a witness maintain credibility if they consistently tell falsehoods, how can prophets maintain credibility if they consistently teach false doctrine.  Where exactly in their long line of false teachings does one finally accept that they’ve lost all credibility?  

We seem to see things very differently.  I see them as consistently teaching true doctrine while occasionally making some mistakes.  If we had a comprehensive list of the things they teach throughout their callings, the list would be enormous.  There is probably only a tiny fraction of things that I disagree with in all of the good fruit that I see and taste that comes from them. 

 All I can do is follow the direction of the spirit - that is how I assess credibility.  I can test their words/seeds by putting them into practice (orthopraxy) and see if they bear fruit.  So far, I have found pretty great bounty from an orthopraxic approach to the gospel.  I am less concerned about orthodoxic beliefs that don't affect my day-to-day life and are not really relevant to anything in my life.  

If these stories were originally intended to be symbols and allegories, and some prophets have understood them to be literal...no skin off my back.   Even if some prophets take some allegories literal, they don't miss out on the intended symbols and application to their own personal lives.  Even if they view it as literal, they also view it as an allegory for their personal lives.  That is straight up from the temple - we should all view ourselves individually and respectively as Adam and Eve.   So, the intended spiritual message is not lost, even if they are wrong in taking it literal.  I might add, that is a big IF.  Nothing can be proven with 100% certainty.  You are relying on faith. 

Edited July 17, 2022 by pogi

[OGHoosier]

30 minutes ago, pogi said:

All I can do is follow the direction of the spirit - that is how I assess credibility.  I can test their words/seeds by putting them into practice (orthopraxy) and see if they bear fruit.  So far, I have found pretty great bounty from an orthopraxic approach to the gospel.  I am less concerned about orthodoxic beliefs that don't affect my day-to-day life and are not really relevant to anything in my life.  

100%. 

Orthopraxis is the main focus of the gospel, but everybody gets caught up in orthodoxy. As if we didn't have a founding prophet who professed his eternal disdain for creeds. 

We are an a-theological faith, generally speaking. Our faith tradition is filled to the brim with antibodies against metaphysical architecture and settled creeds. And yet we continue this eternal gyre.

[Fair Dinkum]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

We seem to see things very differently.  I see them as consistently teaching true doctrine while occasionally making some mistakes.  If we had a comprehensive list of the things they teach throughout their callings, the list would be enormous.  There is probably only a tiny fraction of things that I disagree with in all of the good fruit that I see and taste that comes from them. 

 All I can do is follow the direction of the spirit - that is how I assess credibility.  I can test their words/seeds by putting them into practice (orthopraxy) and see if they bear fruit.  So far, I have found pretty great bounty from an orthopraxic approach to the gospel.  I am less concerned about orthodoxic beliefs that don't affect my day-to-day life and are not really relevant to anything in my life.  

If these stories were originally intended to be symbols and allegories, and some prophets have understood them to be literal...no skin off my back.   Even if some prophets take some allegories literal, they don't miss out on the intended symbols and application to their own personal lives.  Even if they view it as literal, they also view it as an allegory for their personal lives.  That is straight up from the temple - we should all view ourselves individually and respectively as Adam and Eve.   So, the intended spiritual message is not lost, even if they are wrong in taking it literal.  I might add, that is a big IF.  Nothing can be proven with 100% certainty.  You are relying on faith. 

But knowing that they have taught falsehoods as truth when do you know their current truth claims aren’t just more false truth claims or false promises?  The spirit isn’t reliable in being able to detect the difference 

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Bluebell, you asked for examples, I provided them for you, you then changed your parameters so I provided you new examples to meet your new parameters and now my thought processes are unreasonable to you….ok if you say so.

I asked for examples and you misunderstood and provided one that wasn’t relevant to what I was asking. I clarified and got a bunch of stuff that also didn’t prove what you were claiming they proved, but outlining why every conclusion that you made that was an unproven assumption from my perspective seemed like a waste of time for both of us, because you aren’t interested in discussion.

So instead I just generally explained why I wasn’t going to continue in the discussion.

[Kevin Christensen]

On 7/16/2022 at 10:57 AM, Fair Dinkum said:

I'm a skeptic of unprovable claims

From Godel, Escher and Bach, by Douglas R. Hofstader:

Quote

The important thing to keep in mind is that proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions...

Godel's proof pertained to any axiomatic system which purported to achieve the aims which Whithead and Russell  had set for themselves [in Principia Mathematica]. And for each different system, one basic method did the trick. In short, Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved.  (pages 18 and 19)

And there is this from Kuhn:

Quote

instead, the issue is which paradigm should in the future guide research on problems which neither competitor can yet claim to resolve completely. A decision between alternate ways of practicing science is called for, and in the circumstances,  that decision must be based less on past achievement than on future promise.  The man who embraces a new paradigm at an early stage must often do so in defiance of the evidence provided by problem-solving. He must, that is, have faith that the new paradigm will suceed with the many large problems that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed with a few. A decision of that kind can only be made on faith.  (Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 157-158.

One unavoidable problem in deciding that the only God that you can accept is one that forces your unwilling compliance is that when you finally meet that God, it is not likely to be a particularly pleasant experience.

Recommended reading, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion by Ian Barbour. 

https://www.religion-online.org/book/myths-models-and-paradigms-a-comparative-study-in-science-and-religion/ 

I would suggest paying close attention to Positivism and the critique he offers, as well as the alternative he presents.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited July 18, 2022 by Kevin Christensen
typo

[Peacefully]

25 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

From Godel, Escher and Bach, by Douglas R. Hofstader:

And there is this from Kuhn:

One unavoidable problem in deciding that the only God that you can accept is one that forces your unwilling compliance is that when you finally meet that God, it is not likely to be a particularly pleasant experience.

Recommended reading, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion by Ian Barbour. 

https://www.religion-online.org/book/myths-models-and-paradigms-a-comparative-study-in-science-and-religion/ 

I would suggest paying close attention to Positivism the critique he offers, as well as the alternative he presents.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

It looks very interesting. Do you have CliffsNotes, lol? 

Edited July 18, 2022 by Peacefully

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

100%. 

Orthopraxis is the main focus of the gospel, but everybody gets caught up in orthodoxy. As if we didn't have a founding prophet who professed his eternal disdain for creeds. 

We are an a-theological faith, generally speaking. Our faith tradition is filled to the brim with antibodies against metaphysical architecture and settled creeds. And yet we continue this eternal gyre.

So so TRUE!

We want to make everything into fake science- when the only thing remotely "empirical" is whether or not the BELIEF makes life "sweeter".  Alma 32.

Theoretically I suppose a poll of opinions might be "objective" for what that's worth.

"23.7% Christian Creation believers prefer the "Organization " paradigm to the "Ex nihilo" paradigm "

At last we have an inter- subjective but worthless "TRVTH" etched in stone

 

Edited July 18, 2022 by mfbukowski

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

One unavoidable problem in deciding that the only God that you can accept is one that forces your unwilling compliance is that when you finally meet that God, it is not likely to be a particularly pleasant experience.

A great way to put it.

[Islander]

On 7/13/2022 at 3:00 PM, CV75 said:

I would say, follow those who possess the keys of the kingdom on spiritual matters, and follow sources of fact on other matters. Both are processed through your brain, but ultimately and relatively-speaking, the things of the kingdom are more important. With the companionship of the Holy Ghost, you will handle covenants and facts alike with grace, and use them for your and others’ benefit. The covenants are more important than those things that people, including prophets, accept as facts, and people can keep these covenants with whatever set of facts they have at their disposal / in their brains.

I suggest that such position approaches superstition rather than truth, and quickly. Truth can not and will not be denied by science since truth belongs to God and exits in the realm in which He created it. We discover truth by empirical means and become aware of it at some point in time but it has always existed. It is absurd to hold on to a position that is clearly unsupported by science, no matter who claims to have revelation to the contrary. I am not referring in particular to the Adam and Eve issue since those are elements that could still be argued on scientific basis. I suggest that the DNA issue in relationship to the Lamanites is a lot more problematic in the light of recent scientific breakthroughs.

Traced: Human DNA's Big Surprise by Nathaniel Jeanson, significantly shakes the position of the Church in connection to the Lehi family migration and expansion proposition of the BoM. The Y chromosome transgenerational defect clock provides a solid foundation for the creation theory and the Christian position of a young earth based on genetics. At the same time, it closes the door to the possible migration of a definitively Jewish group that later expanded to millions of inhabitant in the north American continent whom later vanish whiteout leaving a genetic echo. The apologetic position in the Gospel Topic essay does not hold water in the face of this newest research.

In sum, holding on to a position that is unequivocally denied by sound scientific inquiry is not faith. It's superstition, to say the list. It will put us in the same group of other 19th century cults that made failed prophesies and prediction which history obviously proved categorically wrong. That should be a concern.

[Zosimus]

4 hours ago, Islander said:

Traced: Human DNA's Big Surprise by Nathaniel Jeanson, significantly shakes the position of the Church in connection to the Lehi family migration and expansion proposition of the BoM.

From the Publisher's Summary of Traced:

"Traced reveals that today’s Native Americans were not the first but replaced earlier inhabitants whose genealogical origins remain unknown."

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 hours ago, Islander said:

The apologetic position in the Gospel Topic essay does not hold water in the face of this newest research.

In sum, holding on to a position that is unequivocally denied by sound scientific inquiry is not faith.

Are you able/willing to provide an iron-clad guarantee that this 'latest research' is the end of all 'sound scientific inquiry' and therefore the final say that all rational beings have universally embraced?

And if not, is it your plan that we update our beliefs each and every time some 'latest research' drops?

Edited July 18, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Zosimus]

22 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

update our beliefs each and every time some 'latest research' drops

It feels like the latest drops are happening weekly now. Two weeks ago a paper was published about an Unknown Population A (UPopA) in ancient Central American populations and also more Australasian Unknown Population Y (UPopY) being discovered, this time farther north in Panama.

More Confusing Genetic Data From South America

Then four days ago a paper linking ancient DNA in Southeast Asia to the first peoples to enter the Americas. "Some of the population is thought to have traveled north from southern East Asia along China’s eastern coastline and on to Siberia, the Bering Strait, and North America. Others became the ancestors of people living in East Asia, the Indo-China peninsula, and islands in Southeast Asia"